David Bowie's filmmaker son Duncan Jones appears to have taken a swipe at Lady Gaga following her epic tribute performance to the rock icon at Monday's Grammy Awards.

The Bad Romance singer, dressed as Bowie's alter ego Ziggy Stardust, received a standing ovation from the star-studded audience at Los Angeles' Staples Center after wowing fans with covers of some of the late legend's most famous tracks, such as Heroes and Let's Dance.

However, not everyone was impressed with the 29-year-old pop superstar's visually-stunning set, and Moon director Duncan appeared to be far from impressed, expressing his disapproval with a telling Twitter post following the Grammys telecast.

"'overexcited or irrational, typically as a result of infatuation or excessive enthusiasm mentally confused'," he wrote, sharing the Oxford English dictionary definition of the word 'gaga'. "Damn it! What IS that word!?"

"overexcited or irrational, typically as a result of infatuation or excessive enthusiasm; mentally confused." Damn it! What IS that word!?

The Moon director did not mention Gaga by name, but fans were quick to catch on and weighed in with their own mixed opinions.

Some attacked Duncan for appearing to diss Gaga, with one Twitter user responding, "How terrible of you. How could you be so rude to someone who looked up to your dad and did her best when she was called to act?", while another added, "Ladygaga (sic) put her entire heart and soul into that performance with the deepest respect and abiding love."

Others agreed with the filmmaker's apparent disdain and chimed in, "it was horrible - sorry. GG (Gaga) is talented but that 'tribute' missed the spirit of Bowie entirely", as another commented, "I'm just gonna say it was awful & leave it at that."

Duncan has not expanded on the meaning of his Twitter post, and Gaga has yet to respond to the apparent attack on her Grammys set.

Prior to the gig, Gaga admitted she had been nervous about living up to fans' expectations, particularly as Bowie had had such a huge impact on her own life and career.

"When I was 19 years old... I started to live my life like him," she told The Associated Press. "I began to consume art and fashion and art history and a combination of those things, performance technique... and I only hung out with people that were artists and that was the way that he was and I learned that from him...

"I can't express to you, I don't know who I'd be if I didn't have (him as) a figure in my life. I don't know what my identity would be."